Dare the question be asked? At the risk of causing President Obama to suffer spasms of anxiety, we'll dare -- though with considerable trepidation.

Here's the ultra-sensitive question: Is the President profiling Muslims?

It's an ultra-sensitive inquiry because, obviously, the question has been troubling the president himself.

A man who is punctilious about observing the various imperatives of political correctness, Obama utters the word "terrorist" only on the rarest of occasions, when he absolutely can't avoid doing so. He never, ever utters the words "jihadist" or "Islamic extremist" or the widely accepted synonym for that last term, "Islamist."

Clearly, the president is giving it the old, all-out, Boy Scout effort to avoid any expression that might give off even the slightest whiff of profiling. You gotta give him an A-plus for effort.

Thus, in his administration "terrorism" was redubbed "man-caused catastrophe." The war on terrorism was renamed "overseas contingency operations." The Ft. Hood massacre by a self-proclaimed Islamic jihadist is officially classified a "workplace violence" incident.

Jihadists -- even openly self-avowed ones -- are never, ever jihadists. On the Obama teleprompter, they're often simply "killers," as if they're merely members of a street gang asserting proprietorship over their turf.

When not "killers," they're "violent extremists." But never violent extremists of any particular kind. Just plain old undifferentiated violent extremists.

This approach has its nitpicking critics. Charles Krauthammer, the Harvard-educated psychiatrist turned syndicated conservative commentator, insists that people don't just devote themselves to extremism devoid of content.

So without naming it, when he vaguely alludes to "violent extremism," isn't the president really singling out one faith? Profiling it, so to speak?

Shouldn't those keen-scented, anti-profiling bloodhounds, Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson, be on the case?

Shouldn't the drone operators and NSA data snoopers be homing in on suspects other than just ones named Mohammed or Abdul?

What about Hindus and Buddhists and Jews and Christians? And isn't it about time Homeland Security started alerting us to Quaker, Unitarian and secular humanist "chatter"?

You know, to avoid any suspicions of profiling, if for no other reason?